Undersheriff, professor outline challenges of prison realignment

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Chico State University professor Jonathan Caudill (left) listens as Butte County Undersheriff Kory Honea describes changes under state prison realignment to a small group Tuesday at the Butte County Library in Oroville.(Barbara Arrigoni/Staff Photo)<p class=’dotPhoto’>All Chico E-R photos are available <a href=’http://chicoer.mycapture.com/’>here</a>.</p>

OROVILLE — During a talk on prison realignment Tuesday afternoon in Oroville, Butte County Undersheriff Kory Honea emphasized a mispercention he sought to clear up.

“People in prisons are not being sent to Butte County,” Honea said twice during a presentation at the Oroville library. “They lived here, were arrested here and prosecuted here for local crimes.”

Honea provided an overview of Assembly Bill 109, and the programs, successes and challenges the county faces since its implementation.

Chico State University criminology professor Jonathan Caudill also addressed a recent study on the impact of AB 109.

Honea and Caudill were invited to speak to the community for this month’s Learn at the Library program, which is hosted on the second Tuesday of each month.

A handful of people showed up, listened and asked a few questions.

Honea first reviewed AB 109, describing events leading up to it as “the perfect storm.”

The state budget crisis, prisons reaching 150 percent of capacity, numerous lawsuits and a high-court ruling to reduce the prison population led state legislators to enact AB 109 in October 2011.

Under prison realignment, people convicted of non-violent, non-serious and non-sexual felonies would serve time in county jails, rather than state prisons, leading to jail crowding locally.

It also shifted parole responsibilities to the county.

Honea said the jail has 614 beds, but has an operating capacity of around 550 beds.

“After AB 109, our average daily population is commonly 600 and above,” he said. “We have to evaluate who comes in, whether they’re going to stay and who could be moved out.”

A woman in the audience asked whether people released from the prisons had committed offenses in Butte County.

At that point, Honea reiterated that prisons weren’t releasing inmates already serving sentences. Instead, people newly convicted of one of the “non” crimes would serve their time locally.

“We realized we needed to come up with solutions or programs,” he said.

One of the new programs borne of AB 109 is alternative custody supervision. Honea said it differs from the sheriff’s work alternative program, or SWAP, in that the former is for people convicted of felonies and is closely monitored. SWAP is for people convicted of misdemeanors and offenders don’t wear ankle bracelets.

In addition, the old juvenile hall facility was converted into a daily reporting center where offenders participate in numerous classes, such as moral recognition therapy, job skills, parenting, anger management and literacy.

Currently, the Sheriff’s Office is working with the Butte County Office of Education to start a charter school to help offenders earn high school diplomas and GEDs, Honea said.

Another partnership program with the Butte County Fire Safe Council gets inmates involved in helping elderly or disabled people create defensible space around their homes.

Honea said he hopes to eventually get inmates involved in fighting fires.

“There’s real value in teaching offenders to work hard and also help somebody else, he said.

Caudill and Honea are also just starting a new program where offenders will help train animals and give them to veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Caudill addressed the work done at Chico State to collect data and assess the impact AB 109 has had on the county.

An initial task was to figure out who is most suitable to be in the community and who is most suitable to stay in jail, he said.

Besides looking at the impact on the jail and surveying inmates’ needs, histories and life experiences, the study also looked at the people in the alternative custody program and measured recidivism.

Caudill also shared some previously unknown perspectives: the people most likely to succeed in the alternative program are those with fewer prior arrests and who are “slightly older” than 30.

The most likely people to escape the program are those with a history of more serious crimes and are significantly younger, and are more likely to be females, he said.

Caudill said the partnership has been beneficial for the Sheriff’s Office, the university and the community, but the true impact of AB 109 probably won’t be known for about 10 years.

“We’re talking about (it being like) an earthquake and the ripple effect of that,” he said.